25 JUNE 2019 (TORONTO, ON) - On July 9th singer/songwriter Leslie Feistwill launch a new podcast series – co-presented by Talkhouse and Earios – entitled ‘Pleasure Studies’, continuing the emotional deep dive begun on her acclaimed 2017 album ‘Pleasure’. But while ‘Pleasure’ emerged as an intensely personal record - one whose origins Feist purposely avoided discussing in the media - 'Pleasure Studies’ turns the lens outward and invites people from vastly different walks of life to share their own singular connection to life’s most foundational themes. In its inventive approach to storytelling, the series braids together stories from the privacy of our interior worlds.

A trailer for ‘Pleasure Studies’ is available now, listen and subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. Starting on July 9th, new episodes of ‘Pleasure Studies’ will be released weekly. The inaugural episode will center around ‘Pleasure’ highlight “Lost Dreams” and the underlying fortitude that can be discovered in loss.

Each episode of ‘Pleasure Studies’ centers on a big theme underpinning a different track from the record: self-reinvention, the power of the natural world, expectations and disillusionment, aspirational aging, disorientation, and the passing of time. Episodes feature generously unguarded stories of people who have followed their dreams, lived long lives, endured devastation, and come out the other side with a greater understanding of what it means to be alive. The eclectic lineup of guests includes a time travel researcher, a Dreamer and activist, a transgender triathlete, an FBI undercover operative, a monogamous couple in adult film, a professional storm-chaser, an alter ego and many more.

Today in a message on social media, Feist explains: “When I was making the last album, I’d been going through something very tough that I felt too dismantled to understand, let alone talk about at the time. I was at loss for context, wondering if anyone else had gone through this type of interior dismantling. The album was borne from that, but the inkling about this series came later, after a year or 2 of touring and hearing other peoples’ stories.

I started to see we’re are all nose to the grindstone in our subjective experiences. I wondered what might be found if we excavate down into the themes underneath the details of our lives...the much deeper drivers that we're all being carried along by. Loss and grief are always major players, but so is perseverance and intimacy and self-knowledge and love...the echoes and nuances of persona creation and manipulation and disappointment. When I’d been feeling so messed up, could that have been made a tiny bit easier if I’d gotten some glimpses at a seed of sameness, popped the subjective bubble that was making me feel singled out by the details of my difficulties? The thought that there could be value in pushing against the instinct to isolate in our dark times was the genesis of this series. Resilience is a trait we can learn by showing up for ourselves, but other people showing up can be a clue of where to begin.

The Great Us-ening is a term that a good friend came up with for how we're all slowly at the speed of life becoming more and more who we each are... and the “us” that we become is made by this mutuality. How does who I choose to be affect how you choose to react? And so here we all are, in this beautiful, sometimes noble mess. So, we brought different stories together to have them shed context on one another, to see what could be learned by that Venn diagram of common ground. We found a bunch of people willing to share their interior lives and braided them together into a kind of storytelling project. It’s a little experimental, a little intuitive, meant to speak to our intuition.”

MORE ABOUT EARIOS:

Earios is a podcast network built by women, with funny, smart and inclusive programming for everyone. Our shows range from interviews to fiction, and all the creative forms in between. The network was incubated in 2018 and launched in 2019 by entertainment veterans Maria Blasucci, Amanda Lund and Priyanka Mattoo. Follow @EariosNetwork on Twitter and Instagram.

MORE ABOUT TALKHOUSE:

Talkhouse is a media company and outlet for musicians, actors, filmmakers, and others in their respective fields. Artists write essays and criticism from firsthand perspectives, speak one-on-one with their peers via the Talkhouse Podcast and Talkhouse Live events, and offer readers and listeners unique insight into creative work of all genres and generations. In short— Talkhouse is writing and conversations about music and film, from the people who make them.